A LA CARTE CASE STUDY FOR SELF AWARENESS & SELFWORTH
Administrator
A LA CARTE
ARTHUR Hapgood was demobbed on November 3rd,
1946. Within a month he was back at his old workplace on the shop-floor of the
Triumph Factory on the outskirts of Coventry.
The five years spent in the Sherwood Foresters,
four of them as a quartermaster seconded to a tank regiment, only underlined
Arthur’s likely post-war fate, despite having hoped to find more rewarding work
once the war was over. However, on returning to England he quickly discovered
that in a “land fit for heroes” jobs were not that easy to come by, and
although he did not want to go back to the work he had done for five years
before war had been declared, that of fitting wheels on cars, he reluctantly,
after four weeks on the dole, went to see his former work’s manager at Triumph.
“The job’s yours if you want it, Arthur,”
the works’ manager assured him.
“And the future”
“The car’s no longer a toy for the
eccentric rich or even just a necessity for the businessman.” The work’ manager
replied. “In fact,” he continued, “management are preparing for the ‘two-car
family’.”
So they’ll need even more wheels to be put on
cars,” said Arthur forlornly.
“That’s the ticket.”
Arthur signed on within the hour and it was only a
matter of days before he was back into his old routine. After all, he often
reminded his wife, it didn’t take a degree in engineering to screw four knobs
on to a wheel a hundred times a shift.
Arthur soon accepted the fact that he would have
to settle for second best. However, second best was not what he planned for his
son. Mark had celebrated his fifth birthday before his father had even set eyes
on him, but from the moment Arthur returned home he lavished everything he
could on the boy.
Arthur was determined that Mark was not going to
end up working on this shop-floor of a car factory for the rest of his life. He
put in hours of overtime to earn enough money to ensure that the boy could have
extra tuition in Math, General Science and English. He felt well-rewarded when
the boy passed his eleven-plus and won a place at King Henry VIII Grammar
School, and that pride did not falter when Mark went on to pass five O-levels
and two years later added two A-levels.
Arthur tried not show his disappointment when, on
Mark’s eighteenth birthday, the boy informed him that he did not want to go to
university.
“What kind of career are you hoping to take
up then, lad?” Arthur enquired.
“I’ve filled in an application form to join
you on the shop-floor just as soon as I leave school.”
“But why would you –”
“Why not? Most of my friends who’re leaving
this term have already been accepted by Triumph, and they can’t wait to get
started.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“Come off it, Dad. The pay’s good and
you’ve shown that there’s always plenty of extra money to be picked up with
overtime. And I don’t mind hard work.”
“Do you think I spent all those years
making sure got a first-class education just to let your life?” Arthur shouted.
“That’s not the whole job and you know it,
Dad.”
“You go there over my dead body,”
said his father. “I don’t care what your friends end up doing, I only care
about you. You could be a solicitor, an accountant, an army officer, even a
schoolmaster. Why should you want to end up at a car factory?”
“It’s better paid than school
mastering for a start,” said Mark. “My French master once told me that he
wasn’t as well off as you.”
“That’s not the point, lad-”
“The point is, Dad, I can’t be
expected to spend the rest of my life doing a job I don’t enjoy just to satisfy
one of your fantasies.”
“Well, I’m not going to allow you to
waste the rest of your life,” said Arthur, getting up from the breakfast table.
“The first thing I’m going to do when I get in to work this morning is see that
your application is turned down.”
“That isn’t fair, Dad. I have the right
to-”
But his father had already left the room,
and did not utter another word to the boy before leaving for the factory.
For over a week father and son didn’t speak
to each other. It was Mark’s mother who was left to come up with the
compromise. Mark could apply for any job that met with his father’s approval
and as long as he completed a year at the job he could, if he still wanted to,
re-apply to work at the factory. His father for his part would not then put any
obstacle in his son’s way.
Arthur nodded. Mark also reluctantly agreed
to the solution.
“But only if you complete the full year,”
Arthur warned solemnly.
During those last days of the summer
holiday Arthur came up with several suggestions for Mark to consider, but the
boy showed no enthusiasm for any of them. Mark’s mother became quite anxious
that her son would end up with no job at all until, while helping her slice potatoes for dinner one night, Mark confided that
he thought hotel management seemed the least unattractive proposition he had
considered so far.
“At least you’d have a roof over your head
and be regularly fed,” his mother said.
“Bet they don’t cook as well as you, Mum,
said Mark as he placed the sliced potatoes on the top of the Lancashire
hot-pot. “Still, it’s only a year.”
During the next month Mark attended several
interviews at hotels around the country without success. It was then that his
father discovered that his old company sergeant was head porter at the Savoy:
immediately Arthur started to pull a few strings.
“If the boy’s any good,” Arthur’s old
comrade-in-arms assured him over a pint, “he could end up as a head porter,
even a hotel manager.” Arthur seemed well satisfied, even though Mark was still
assuring his father’s that he would be joining them a year to the day.
On September 1st, 1959, Arthur and Mark
Hapgood travelled together by bus to Coventry station. Arthur shook hands with
the boy and promised him, “Your mother and I will make sure it’s a special
Christmas this year when they give you your first leave. And don’t worry-you’ll
be in good hands with ‘Serge’. He’ll teach you a thing or two. Just remember to
keep your nose clean.”
Mark said nothing and returned a thin smile
as he-boarded the train. “You’ll never regret it…” were the last words Mark
heard his father say as the train pulled out of the station.
Mark regretted it from the moment he set foot in
the hotel.
As a junior porter he started his day at
six in the morning and ended at six in the evening. He was entitled to
fifteen-minute mid-morning break, a forty-five minute lunch break and another
fifteen-minute break around mid-afternoon. After the first month had passed he
could not recall when he had been granted all three breaks on the same day, he
quickly learned that there was no one to whom he could protest. His duties
consisted of carrying guests’ cases up to their rooms, then lugging them back
down again the moment they wanted to leave. With an average of three hundred
people staying in the hotel each night the process was endless. The pay turned
out to be half what his friends were getting back home and as he had to hand
over all his tips to the head porter, however much overtime mark put in, he
never saw an extra penny. On the only occasion he dared to mention it to the
head porter he was met with the words, “You time will come, lad.”
It did not worry Mark that his uniform didn’t fit
or that the room was six foot and overlooked charring Cross Station, or even
that he didn’t get a share of the tips; but it did worry him that there was
nothing he could do to please the head porter-however clean he kept his nose.
Sergeant Crann, who considered the Savoy nothing
more than an extension of his old platoon, didn’t have a lot of time for young
men under his command who hadn’t done their national service.
“But I wasn’t eligible to do national
service,” insisted Mark. “No one born after 1939 was called up.”
“Don’t make excuses, lad.”
“It’s not an excuse, Serge. It’s the
truth.”
“And don’t call me ‘Serge’. I’m ‘Sergeant
Crann’ to you, and don’t you for forget it.”
“Yes, Sergeant Crann.”
At the end of day Mark would return to his
little box-room with its small bed, small chair and tiny chest of drawers, and
collapse exhausted. The only picture `in the room-of the Laughing Cavalier-was
on the calendar that hung above Mark’s bed. The date of September 1st 1960, was
circled in red to remind him when he would be allowed to re-join his friend at
the factory back home. Each night before falling asleep he would cross out the
offending day like a prisoner making scratch marks on a wall.
At Christmas Mark returned home for a
four-day break, and when his mother saw the general state of the boy she tried
to talk his father into allowing Mark to give up the job early, but Arthur
remained implacable.
“We made an agreement. I can’t be expected
to get him a job at the factory if he isn’t responsible enough to keep to his
part of a bargain.”
During the holiday Mark waited for his
friends outside the factory gate until their shift had ended and listened to
their stories of weekends spent watching football, drinking at the pub and
dancing to the Everley Brothers. They all sympathized with his problem and
looked forward to him joining them reminded him cheerfully.
Far too quickly, Mark was on the journey
back to London, where he continued unwillingly to hump cases up and down the
hotel corridors for month after month.
Once the English rain had subsided, the
usual influx of American tourists began. Mark liked the Americans, who treated
him –a shilling when others would have given him only sixpence. But whatever
the amount Mark received Sergeant Crann would still pocket it with the
inevitable, “Your time will come, lad.”
One such American for whom Mark ran around
diligently every day during his fortnight’s stay ended up presenting the boy
with a ten-bob note as he left the front entrance of the hotel.
Mark said, “Thank you sir,” and turned
around to see Sergeant Crann standing in his path.
“Hand it over,” said Crann as soon as the
American visitor was well out of earshot.
“I was going to the moment I saw you,” said
Mark, passing the note to his superior.
“Not thinking of pocketing what’s
rightfully mine, was you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Mark. “Though God
knows I earned it.”
“You time will come, lad,” said Sergeant
Crann without much thought.
“Not while someone as mean as you is in
charge,” replied Mark sharply.
“What was that you said?” asked the head
porter, veering round.
“You heard me the first time, Serge.”
The clip across the ear took Mark by
surprise.
“You, lad, have just lost your job. Nobody,
but nobody, talks to me like that.” Sergeant Crann turned and set off smartly
in the direction of the manager’s office.
The hotel manager, Gerald Drummond,
listened to the head porter’s version of events before asking Mark to report to
his office immediately. “You realize I have been left with no choice but to
sack you,” were his first words once the door was closed.
Mark looked up at the tall, elegant man in
his long, black coat, white collar and black tie. “Am I allowed to tell you
what actually happened, sir?” he asked.
Mr Drummond nodded, then listened without
interruption as Mark gave his version of what had taken place that morning, and
also disclosed the agreement he had entered into with his father. “Please let
me complete my final ten weeks,” Mark ended, “or my father will only say I
haven’t kept my end of our bargain.”
“I haven’t got another job vacant at the
moment,” protested the manager. “Unless you’re willing to peel potatoes for ten
weeks.”
“Anything,” Said Mark.
“Then report to the kitchen at six tomorrow
morning. I’ll tell the third chef to expect you. Only if you think the head
porter is a martinet just waits until you meet Jacques, our chef de maître
cuisine. He won’t clip your ear, he’ll cut it off.”
Mark didn’t care. He felt confident that
for just ten weeks he could face anything, and at five thirty the following
morning he exchanged his dark blue uniform for a white top and blue and white
check trousers before reporting for his duties. To his surprise the kitchen
took up almost the entire basement of the hotel, and was even more of a bustle
than the lobby had been.
The third chef put him in the corner of the
kitchen, next to a mountain of potatoes, a bowl of cold water and a sharp
knife. Mark peeled through breakfast, lunch and dinner, and fell asleep on his
bed that night without even enough energy left to cross a day off his calendar.
For the first week he never actually saw
the fabled Jacques. With seventy people working in the kitchens Mark felt
confident he could pass his whole period there without anyone being aware of
him.
Each morning at six he would start peeling and
then hand over the potatoes to a gangling youth called Terry who in turn would
dice or cut them according to the third chef’s instructions for the dish of the
day. Monday sauté, Tuesday mashed, Wednesday French-fried, Thursday sliced,
Friday roast, Saturday croquette . . . Mark quickly worked out a routine which
kept him well ahead of Terry and therefore out of any trouble.
Having watched Terry do his job for over a week,
Mark felt sure he could have shown the young apprentice how to lighten his
workload quite simply, but he decided to keep his mouth closed: opening it
might only get him a second chance.
Mark soon discovered that Terry always felt badly
behind on Tuesday’s shepherd’s pie and Thursday’s Lancashire hot-pot. From time
to time the third chef would come across to complain and he would glance over
at Mark to be sure that it wasn’t him who was holding the process up. Mark made
certain that he always had a spare tub of peeled potatoes by his side so that
he escaped censure.
It was on the first Thursday morning in
August, Lancashire hot Terry sliced off the top of his forefinger. Blood
spurted all over the sliced potatoes and on to the wooden table as the lad
began yelling hysterically.
“Get him out of here!” Mark heard the chef de
maître cuisine bellow above the noise of the kitchen as he stormed towards
them.
“And you,” he said, pointing at Mark, “clean
up mess and start slicing rest of potatoes. I have eight hundred customers
still expecting to feed.”
“Me?” said Mark in disbelief. “But…“
“Yes, you. You couldn’t do worse job than idiot
who calls himself trainee chef and cuts off finger.” The chef marched away,
leaving Mark to move reluctantly across to the table where Terry had been
working. He felt disinclined to argue while the calendar was there to remind
him that that he was down to his last twenty-five days.
Mark set about a task he had carried out for his
mother many times. The clean, neat cuts were delivered with a skill terry would
never learn to master. By the end of the day, although exhausted, Mark did not
feel quite as tired as he had in the past.
At eleven that night the chef de maître cuisine threw
off his hat and barged out of the swing doors, a sign to everyone else they
could also leave the kitchen once everything that was their responsibility had
been cleared up. A few second later the door swung back open and the chef burst
in. He stared round the kitchen as everyone waited to see what he would do
next. Having found what he was looking for, he headed straight for Mark.
“Oh, my God,” thought Mark. “He’s going to kill
me.”
“How is your name?” the chef demanded.
“Mark Hapgood, sir,” he managed to splutter out.
“You waste on ’tatoes, Mark Hapgood,” said if that
cretin with half finger ever returns, put him to peeling ’tatoes.”
The chef turned on his heel even before Mark had
the chance to reply. He dreaded the thought of having to spend three weeks in
the middle of the kitchens, never once out of the chef de maître cuisine’s
sight, but he accepted there was no alternative.
The next morning Mark arrived at six for fear of
being late and spent an hour watching the fresh vegetables being unloaded from
Covent Garden market. The hotel’s supply manager checked every case carefully,
rejecting several before he signed a chit to show the hotel had received over
three thousand pounds’ worth of vegetables.
An average day, he assured Mark.
The chef de maître cuisine appeared a few minutes
before seven thirty, checked the menus and told Mark to score the
Brussels sprouts, trim the French beans and remove the coarse outer leaves of
the cabbages.
“But I don’t know how,” Mark replied honestly. He
could feel the other trainees in the kitchen edging away from him.
“Then I teach you,” roared the chef. “Perhaps only
thing you learn is if hope to be good chef, you able to do everyone’s job in kitchen,
even ’tattoo peeler’s.”
“But I’m hoping to be a . . .” Mark being and then
thought better of it. The chef seemed not to have heard Mark as he took his
place beside the new recruit. Everyone in the kitchen stared as the chef began
to show Mark the basic skills of cutting, dicing and slicing.
“And remember other idiot’s finger,” the chef said
on completing the lesson and passing the razor-sharp knife back to Mark. “Yours
can be next.”
Mark started gingerly dicing the carrots and then
the Brussels sprouts, removing the outer layer before cutting a firm cross in
the stalk. Next he moved on to trimming and slicing the beans.
Once again he found it fairly easy to keep ahead
of the chef’s requirements.
At the end of each day, after the head chef had
left, Mark stayed on to sharpen all his knives in preparation for the following
morning, and would not leave his work area until it was spotless.
On the sixth day, after a curt nod from the chef,
Mark realized he must be doing something half-right. By the following Saturday
he felt he had mastered the simple skills of vegetable preparation and found
himself becoming fascinated by what the chef himself was up to.
Although Jacques rarely addressed anyone as he
marched round the acre of kitchen except to grunt his approval or
disapproval-the latter more commonly-Mark quickly learned to anticipate his
needs.
Within a short space of time he began to feel that
he was part of a team –even though he was only too aware of being the novice recruits.
On the deputy chef’s day off the following week
Mark was allowed to arrange the cooked vegetable in their bowls and spent some
time making each dish look attractive as well as edible. The chef not only
noticed but actually muttered his greatest accolade – “Bon.”
During his last three weeks at the Savoy Mark did
not even look at the calendar above his bed.
One Thursday morning a message came down
from the under-manager that Mark was to report to his office as soon as was
convenient. Mark had quite forgotten that it was August 31st – his last day. He
cut ten lemons into quarters and then finished preparing the forty plates of
thinly sliced smoked salmon that would complete the first course for a wedding
lunch. He looked with pride at his efforts before folding up his apron and leaving
to collect his papers and final wage packet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the chef,
looking up.
“I’m off,” said Mark ‘’back to Coventry.”
“See you Monday then. You deserve day off.”
“No, I’m going home for good,” said Mark.
The chef stopped checking the cuts of rare beef
that would make up the second course of the wedding feast.
“Going?” he repeated as if he didn’t understand
the word.
“Yes. I’ve finished my year and now I’m off home
to work.”
“I hope you found first- class hotel,” said the
chef with genuine interest.
“I’m not going to work in a hotel.”
“A restaurant perhaps?”
“No, I’m going to get a job at Triumph.”
The chef looked puzzled for a moment, unsure if it
was his English or whether the boy was mocking him.
“What is –Triumph?”
“A place where they manufacture cars.”
“You will manufacture cars?
“Not a whole car, but I will put the wheels on.”
“You put cars on wheels?” the chef said in
disbelief
“No,” laughed Mark. “Wheels on cars.”
The chef still looked Mark. “Wheels on cars.”
“So you will be cooking for the car workers?”
“No. As I explained, I’m going to put the wheels
on the cars,” said Mark slowly, enunciating each word.
“That not possible.”
“Oh yes it is,” responded Mark. “And I’ve waited a
whole year to prove it.”
“If I offered you job as commas chef, you change
mind?” asked the chef quietly.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you’ve talent in those fingers. In time I
think you become chef, perhaps even good chef.”
“No, thanks. I’m off to Coventry to join my
mates.”
The head chef, shrugged. “Tant pis,” he said, and
without a second glance returned to the carcass of beef. He glanced over at the
plates of smoked salmon. “A wasted talent,” he added after the swing door had
closed behind his potential protégé.
Mark locked his room, threw the calendar in the
wastepaper basket and returned to the hotel to hand in his kitchen clothes to
the housekeeper. The final action he took was to return his room key to the
under-manager. “You wage packet, your cards and your PAYE. Oh, and the chef has
phoned up to say he would be happy to give you a reference,” said the
under-manager, Can’t pretend that happens every day.”
“Won’t need that where I’m going,” said Mark. “But
thanks all the same.”
He started off for the station at a brisk pace, his
small battered suitcase swinging by his side, only to find that each step took
a little longer. When he arrived at Euston he made his way to Platform 7 and
began walking up and down, occasionally staring at the great clock above the
booking hall. He watched first one train and then another pull out of the
station bound for Coventry. He was aware of the station becoming dark as
shadows filtered through the glass awning on to the public concourse. Suddenly
he turned and walked off at an even brisker pace. If he hurried he could still
be back in time to help chef prepare dinner that night.
Mark trained under Jacques for five years.
Vegetables were followed by sauces, fish by poultry, and meats by patisserie.
After eight years at the Savoy he was appointed second chef, and had learned so
much from his mentor that regular patrons could no longer be sure when it was
the chef de maître cuisine’s day off. Two years later Mark become a master
chef, and when in 1971 Jacques was offered the opportunity to return to Paris
and take over the kitchens of the London – Jacques agreed, but only on
condition that Mark accompanied him.
“It is wrong direction from Coventry,” Jacques
warned him, “and in any case they sure to offer you my job at the Savoy.”
“I’d better come along otherwise those Frogs will
never get a decent meal.”
“Those Frogs,” said Jacques, “will always know
when it’s my day off.”
“Yes, and book in even greater numbers,” suggested
Mark, laughing.
It was not long before Parisians were flocking to
the George Cinq, not to rest their weary heads but to relish the cooking of the
two-chef team.
When Jacques celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday,
the great hotel did not have to look far to appoint his successor.
“The first Englishman ever to be chef de maître at
the George Cinq,” said Jacques, raising a glass of champagne at his farewell
banquet. “Who would believe it? Of course, you will have to change your name to
Mare to hold down such a position.”
“Neither will ever happen,” said Mark.
“Oh yes it will, because I ’ave recommended
you.”
“Then I shall turn it down.”
“Going to put cars on wheels, peut-etre?”
asked Jacques mock-ingly.
“No, but I have found a little restaurant
on the Left Bank. With my saving alone I can’t quite afford the lease, but with
your help. . .”
Chez Jacques opened on the Left Bank
on May 1st, 1982, and it was not long before those customers who had taken the
George Cinq for granted transferred their
allegiance.
Mark’s reputation spread as the two
chefs pioneered “nouvelle cuisine”, and soon the only way anyone could be
guaranteed a table at the restaurant in under three weeks was to be a film star
or a Cabinet Minister.
The day Michelin gave Chez Jacques their
star, Mark, with Jacques’s blessing, decided to open a second restaurant. The
press and customers then quarreled amongst themselves as to which was the finer
establishment. The booking sheets showed clearly the public felt there was no
difference.
When in October 1986 Jacques died, at
the age of seventy-one, the restaurant critics wrote confidently that standards
were bound to fall. A year later the same journalists had to admit that one of
the five great chefs of France had come from a town in British Midlands they
could not even pronounce.
Jacques’s death only made Mark yearn
more for his homeland, and when he read in the Daily Telegraph of new
development to be built in Covent Garden he called the site agent to ask for
more details.
Mark’s third restaurant was opened in the
heart of London on February 11th, 1987.
Over the years Mark Hapgood often travelled back
to Coventry to see his parents. His father had retired long since but Mark was
still unable to persuade either parent to take the trip to Paris and sample his
culinary efforts. But now he had opened in the country’s capital he hoped to
tempt them.
“We don’t need to go up to London,” said
his mother, laying the table. “You always cook for us whenever you come home,
and we read of your successes in the papers. In any case, your father isn’t so
good on his legs nowadays.”
“What do you call this son?” his father
asked a few minutes later as noisette of lamb surrounded by baby carrots was
placed in front of him.
“Nouvelle cuisine.”
“And people pay good money for it?”
Mark laughed and the following day prepared
his father’s favourite Lancashire hot-pot.
“Now that’s a real meal,” said Arthur
after his third helping. “And I’ll tell you something for nothing, lad. You
cook it almost as well as your mother.”
A year later Michelin announced the
restaurants throughout the world that had been awarded their coveted third
star. The Times let its readers know on its front page that Chez Jacques was
the first English restaurant ever to be so honoured.
To celebrate the award Mark’s parents
finally agreed to make the journey down to London, though not until Mark had
sent a telegram saying he was reconsidering that job at British Leyland. He
sent a car to fetch his parents and had them installed in a suite at the Savoy.
That evening he reserved the most popular table at Chez Jacques in their name.
Vegetable soup followed by steak and kidney
pie with a plate of bread and butter pudding to end on were not the table
d’hôtel that night, but they were served for the special guests on Table 17.
Under the influence of the finest wine, Arthur was soon chatting happily
to anyone who would listen and couldn’t resist reminding the head waiter that
it was his son who owned the restaurant.
“Don’t be silly, Arthur,” said his wife.
“He already knows that.”
“Nice couple, your parents,” the head
waiter confided to his boss after he had served them with their coffee and
supplied Arthur with a cigar. “What did your old man do before he retired?
Banker, lawyer, schoolmaster?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” said Mark
quietly. “He spent the whole of his working life putting wheels on cars.”
“But why would he waste his time doing
that?” asked the waiter incredulously.
“Because he wasn’t lucky enough to
have a father like mine,” Mark replied.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Discuss the salient points of the case.
2. Relate this to a personal experience that increased your awareness.
3. Conclude with an apt quote (yours or otherwise).
4. 5 Slides inclusive of introduction and thank you.
Morenikeji Odunmbaku
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Administrator
Please be informed that the Self Awareness session will hold on the 23rd of April, 2014. Kindly prepare for your presentation for that day.
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